Magical Girl with Demonic Time Magic-Chapter 54: Plan

The tentacles of the monster’s body come together at the top of the body, forming something resembling armor, as the monster advances towards me with a powerful punch.

Ayane creates a barrier to protect me while I prepare for the opening that will arise, but surprisingly to both me and Ayane, the punch breaks the barrier and hits me hard in the stomach, as he continues the motion, throwing me against a tree.

’...’ I fall to the ground in pain. This sudden increase in strength was simply absurd. He just covered the upper part of his body with these strange tentacles, and that increased his strength so much?

I get up as the monster prepares to advance towards Ayane. I grab a branch from the tree and throw it at the monster to obstruct his visibility while I run towards Ayane.

I manage to reach her first, but I don’t have much time, so I just grab Ayane by the waist and jump, barely avoiding the monster. It seems I underestimated the situation.

’If a blow like that hits, it will break my bones,’ I think as I see the monster crashing through a building, hitting the metal beam, and even that doesn’t stop him, as he continues the advance, only stopping because he wanted to.

I notice Ayane’s body trembling, but I don’t have the time or ability to fight alone. I need Ayane’s help.

"Ayane, please compose yourself. We can win this, it’s nothing," I say to her with "confidence," which seems to calm her down. I put her on the ground and take a few steps forward.

"Not bad, girl. You managed to react even after receiving one of my blows," the monster says arrogantly, taking a few steps forward.

Although he’s wrong, I didn’t react because the pain was little. In fact, that blow hurt a lot. I was still able to react because all the pain Ayane has already felt is much greater than that, which makes it possible for me to move even with pain. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

’I need to be careful with the damage.’

"Ayane, try to heal me," I tell her, who still doesn’t know how to use this branch correctly.

"O-Okay, I’ll try," she says nervously as I point my weapon at the monster.

’I’d say he’s probably a Colossal-class.’ I deduce that most monsters must be in the Colossal-class, as it’s been easy to have only this type of enemy recently.

Perhaps the magical girl classification is wrong, as it was made in the past, but recently the monsters have started to increase in number and probably in strength as well.

"How about I make a proposal? If either of you abandons the other and runs away, you won’t be pursued. Having just one of you is already a profit," the monster says, trying to separate us.

"I’ll never do that!" Ayane and I say at the same time.

"I see, your camaraderie seems to be high," the monster says with false disappointment as he advances. If I can’t beat him in strength, I’ll just use unpredictability.

I throw my weapon at the monster, who doesn’t expect it, and in this brief moment of distraction, I push Ayane and quickly pull her staff. I bend my body down, leaving the staff inclined at about 78 degrees upwards.

The monster, who just advanced, hits the staff, having his arm pierced, since logically, if you advance against something that is using the ground to stabilize, the chances of your body being pierced are greater than breaking the object.

The monster retreats with a hole in his arm that is bleeding. Ayane gets up as I hand her the staff and my weapon appears in my hand.

"Sorry," I murmur to her, and she just says it’s okay. I needed to prove if this monster could still be hurt.

"Not bad," he says as tentacles cover the wound. This makes it clear to him and to me that even though he’s stronger, he can still be injured, and if he can be injured, he can also be killed.

"Hyaa!" Ayane lets out a scream when the monster stomps on the ground and uses earth magic to throw us up. He starts firing concrete projectiles that are barely defended by Ayane’s barriers.

I can even destroy some with shots, but the angle in the air is horrible. I’d love to have wings. If I could fly, I’d have an absurd advantage, but of course, I don’t have anything like that.

We both fall to the ground while I run to Ayane, picking her up and running with her in my arms. This place isn’t favoring us, so I’ll try to get to a better one.

The monster pursues us with speed, and he’ll soon catch up. I need to think of something.

"S-Setsuna, I’m sorry I’m not helping much," Ayane apologizes as I enter an alley and jump from wall to wall to climb up.

"It’s okay, that’s not a problem..." I lie, not to make her feel bad. It’s a fact that she’s just getting in my way. Her barriers have even given a slight help, but if I were alone, I could use my sniper or the knife.

"Setsuna, you don’t need to lie. I know you think I’m not helping, and you’re right..."

"B-But I want to help. Can’t you think of something? You’re a genius, I’ll do your plan."

"...Ayane, if you do everything I tell you, I know how we can win...but it won’t be pretty or fair, like you want to be. It will be cowardly and cruel."

Of course, I know a way for Ayane to defeat this monster. But it happens that the Ayane in the diary made it clear what kind of heroine she wanted to be, and my methods for using her ability would be cowardly and cruel, because a barrier ability is made to protect, not to kill.

And obviously, when you use something defensive to kill, the result of death is something cruel and terrible, precisely because objects made to kill aim to kill quickly and efficiently.

"T-That’s okay...I understand. I’ll do anything. We need to protect the normal people from this monster...and...I don’t want anything to happen to you because you came to save me," Ayane says with a not-so-good smile.

"Great, then I need you to do three things for me. First, get as far away as possible. Second, try to make a single barrier in the shape of a spike, it needs to be at least 1 meter tall, and the tip needs to be 3 centimeters wide, getting thicker towards the end like a cone."

"But the maximum thickness at the end should be 9 centimeters, and the spike will need to have a spiral shape on the sides, as if it starts at the tip and goes to the end."

"And third, I need you to do this exactly under a building where I’ll be. Use my shadow to know where to place this spike."

"O-Okay, I’ll do as you said. I-I think I can make that shape," she says as I accelerate as much as possible, hearing the sound of the monster pursuing us. He seems to be trying to climb up.

We both run while I give some extra explanations. I think Ayane still doesn’t fully understand what I’m going to do, but that’s okay as long as she does it correctly.

When we’re far enough away, she goes down under the building while I stay on top, seeing the monster jumping the buildings until he stops on the one I’m on.

"Where’s your partner?" He questions. I’ve noticed that monsters generally don’t know how to detect the presence of others.

"I told her to run. She was just getting in the way."

"And you think you can beat me alone?"

"Honestly? I don’t think so, but don’t worry about that. It’s good for you, right?" I say, shooting several shots at him, which he dodges as he advances. I also advance in front without evading.

With our collision, I do my best to hold back his attack, but he uses his other arm to punch, which immediately breaks my arm. I feel a very unpleasant pain, but I hold him.

Using my flexibility, I move quickly, getting above him and putting him in a rear-naked choke. I can’t hold the gun to shoot since it fell to the ground, but I use the position to guide him while I jump and kick his back.

He turns to me as I see him on the edge of the building where Ayane must have already made the barrier spike.

"Why don’t you use earth magic?" I ask.

"..."

"As I thought, on top of buildings, you can’t, can you? Because it would make the building’s structure give way, and even better, you can’t use this magic if you’re not in contact with the ground," I say, ignoring the pain in my broken arm.

"Your resilience is frightening. Doesn’t that hurt?" He changes the subject.

"This? It’s nothing much. It’s just an arm." If I hesitated just for a broken arm, it would be ridiculous when I don’t even hesitate to shoot myself in the head.

"..." I need to finish this now. A broken arm and painful abdominal injuries. If I can’t kill him, I’ll have problems. I run forward as he also runs.

But to dodge, I slide on the ground and then, using my back and my still good arm, I propel myself forward, doing a double flying kick to his chin, which destabilizes him.

Taking advantage of this, I push him hard, knocking him and me off the building. I know that if he just fell by himself, he could dodge. That’s why I use my body to guide his, while using my weight to accelerate the fall.

Unable to react, he tries to grab onto anything, but with my good hand, I grab the gun and shoot his hand. Near the ground, I jump, using the momentum to push him faster, straight into the spike-shaped barrier, while I stick my hand in the wall, using the broken arm.

The pain is terrible, and I practically fall afterwards. This only reduced my falling speed, but using the broken arm gave me a lot of pain. Fortunately, I’m caught by Ayane, who jumps to catch me before I fall.

"My heroine," I say to her with a smile, while she timidly gives me a smile.